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The Drone Law

You will all of no doubt seen in the news the commotion around drones and some of the idiotic things that some people do with them.

Strange as it may seem there are quite rigorous rules and regulations to follow when operating a Remotely Piloted Aircraft Sytem (RPAS). Drone View as a company have to abide by rules and regulations set out by the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), it is the CAA that grant permission for Drone View to operate professionally in short it means we are allowed to sell what images we capture.

There are many operators out there that offer aerial imaging services, but they do not have the permit for Commercial Operations (PFCO) granted to them by the CAA. This makes what they do illegal and often dangerous. See our blog on professional aerial photographer

So using someone you know to take the footage for you, would render the video illegal if they do not have a PFAW from the CAA. Not only that there is a great deal of training gone into operating this aircraft safely and its not possible to just take on out the box and fly it safely.

Prior to booking any work Drone View will investigate in full the potential for the work to take place, if necessary we will call to the site in questions to further gain information about the surrounding area. Not all jobs can be done safely and we will turn down any that put the public, animals, equipment or building at risk. 95% of the time the shoot can take place but with various safety measures put into place.

Our aircraft can fly at an height of 400ft and a maximum of 500m away from the operator but always maintaining Visual Line Of Site (VLOS). Our equipment is rain sensitive and cannot fly in precipitation of any kind. If this is the case then the job will be rescheduled at no extra cost.

To train to operate an Unmanned aircraft such as our takes months of work. All of our operators have attended a CAA approved training course and have qualified to fly such aircraft. Areas of study include:

Air Law

Airspace

Navigation and charting

Meteorology

Principals of flight

Principals of flight RPAS

Human Factors

Unmanned aircraft Operations

Flight test

On top of the above training we provide an operations manual to the CAA and this is our guide to how we are going to operate, this has to be approved by the CAA in order for us to operate. So you can see from above the amount of work that goes into make sure what Drone View offer is in keeping with the current laws